4 things your organization must be good at to master non-linear change
Would you like your organization to move away from sequential change projects in favor of a more non-linear and continuous approach to change? Good! Want that change to be long-term, systematized, measurable and led with intent? Even better. Let’s talk about what it takes.
Here are four capabilities your organization needs to practice to make that shift real.
1. Set and adapt the direction of change
When you’re not aiming for a fixed end state, you need something else to steer by: a strategic direction. And you need to be able to describe it clearly—ideally in terms of which behaviors you want more of, and which you could do with a little less of. As the change unfolds, you’ll learn more. That means the direction gets sharper, smarter, and sometimes different altogether. When the world around you shifts, your direction should too.
Example: The steering group meets every three months to reassess the direction and updates the strategy board in the break room (yes, the one by the coffee machine).
2. Run experiments in people's context
In a non-linear, continuous approach, change doesn’t roll out in grand plans—it emerges through a steady flow of small, deliberate experiments. You tweak something in people’s real-world context to spark one of two things (or both): actual change or valuable learning. Each experiment targets a specific problem in a specific setting. And once it’s done, you evaluate it to extract insights that move the work forward.
Example: Every change agent runs at least one experiment each week in their team, group, or project. A coach from the change team helps evaluate it. The experiment board in the change studio keeps track of them all, and learnings are brought into the next sensemaking workshop.
3. Make sense of the ongoing change
When you start experimenting and messing with the system (in the best possible way), you’ll see reactions, ripple effects, unexpected outcomes. Those signals matter. We capture them, not to archive, but to make sense of them. That’s how we turn scattered observations into insights that sharpen the change and make it hit closer to the mark.
Example: The change team meets every other week for a sensemaking workshop. They pull insights from what’s happening across the organization and share them on the change initiative’s intranet page.
4. Make decisions about the ongoing change
Non-linear change doesn’t follow a rigid plan with a tidy checklist. It focuses on solving what matters most at this moment, knowing full well that what matters will shift. That means staying alert, paying attention to what’s blocking progress, and making fresh decisions—again and again—about which problems to tackle and how to go about it.
Example: The change team meets weekly to prioritize the most important problems and come up with ideas on how to solve them. Both problems and potential solutions are posted on the change board in the break room (yes, again, it’s where the action is).
One last thing
Just because the work is non-linear doesn’t mean it has to be chaotic. You can absolutely systematize it to make it transparent, continuous, and steerable. Change doesn’t have to be neat. It has to work. Agree?
Anders Wengelin
CEO, Partner and Management Consultant
